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Malazan Wiki:FAQ
Answers to some questions about the Wiki. If you need more information, please contact one of the other editors on their talk page and someone will come back to you as soon as possible. Usage Questions How do I avoid spoilers? : Access via the New Readers Zone and follow the instruction there. General questions Who owns the Malazan Wiki? : The Wiki is hosted by Wikia, a free wiki hosting service operated by Wikia, Inc., a for-profit organization founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Wikia receives all profit from the Google AdSense advertisements on the Malazan Wiki. Wikia is responsible for technical issues with the site; it also sometimes provides legal advice and is our legal Designated Agent. How old is the Malazan Wiki? : The Wiki was founded in March 2008 by someone with the user account 'The Rope' who edited for about a year. The abandoned Wiki was eventually taken on by Jade Raven who took over redesigning the Wiki in October 2009. Since then it has been going from strength to strength. :*Statistics at the time of page 3000 :*Statistics at the time of page 4000 - read Jade Raven's comment for more Wiki history :*Statistics at the time of page 5000 Who is responsible for the content of the Malazan Wiki? : The Wiki is a community project and all editors are responsible to add factually correct content to the best of their knowledge based on reliable first hand sources. If it isn't in the books, don't make it up!!! : You can find who contributed to a particular article by looking at its edit history. What keeps the Malazan Wiki from being destroyed? : Every Wiki article contains an edit history (accessible from the "history" tab by default), which records all edits since the article was created. In the case of an editing mistake or vandalism, the page can be reverted back to the appropriate last hale version. How can I contact the Malazan Wiki? : Post a note on the talk page of *Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) – also German Wiki Admin *ArchieVist (talk) Legal questions Is the Malazan Wiki copyrighted? : Yes, all contributions are copyrighted by the people who made them. This means that if you edit an article, you hold copyright for the edits you made, but not for edits made by other people contributing to the same article. : The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, which we use, leverages the legal institute of copyright to ensure that everyone will have the right to freely access, modify and redistribute licensed content, no matter what. Therefore, do not contribute if you do not want your edits to be in turn mercilessly edited by others. Can I use Malazan Wiki content on my site/elsewhere? : Yes, however, this only applies to the text, licensed under the CC-BY-SA, and a select few free images. Most of our images are copyright of the individual artists who have given permission for use on the Malazan Wikis only. Using them for other purposes or in countries where fair use conditions do not apply may be illegal. If you wish to use an image, please contact the artist directly - images normally contain a link back to the artist's website. : If you use Malazan Wiki articles elsewhere, all you are legally required to do (by the license) is to add a copyright notice saying that the article is copyrighted and licensed under the CC-BY-SA, and a link to the original Malazan Wiki article. You can freely modify and redistribute the material, provided that you license your modifications under the CC-BY-SA as well. You cannot license it on other conditions or put it in the public domain, nor can you claim copyright for content you did not write yourself (everyone only holds copyright to the contributions they themselves made). Can I use Malazan Wiki content on another wiki? :Yes, if the said wiki is itself licensed under the CC-BY-SA. This includes almost all of Wikia (with the exception of Memory Alpha, Uncyclopedia, and a small number of other wikis that are licensed under other incompatible licenses) and most Wikimedia Foundation projects, including Wikipedia. In this case, the aforementioned copyright notice goes to the talk page of the said article; the restrictions still apply. Can I copy content from other websites to the Malazan Wiki? : No, as this would be a copyright violation - better to insert links to other sources. For example, please do not copy from the Tor re-read verbatim. Also make sure that you have the permission of the artist if you upload an image. To report a copyright violation, please contact an admin. Technical questions What software does the Malazan Wiki use? : All of Wikia uses MediaWiki, the same software as Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects. Wikia also uses some third-party extensions, which are available to all hosted wikis. The exact details can be found at W:Special:Version. Where should I report a technical issue? : If they are major technical issues like the site being down, or weird error messages, you can contact Wikia directly, otherwise, leave a message on the talk page of one of the regular contributors and someone will get back to you. Do I have to register? : No, but we strongly recommended it. You can view and edit pages as an anonymous user, but registration will hide your IP address and give you the ability to upload files, move (rename) pages, and edit so-called semi-protected pages (after a few days). : Registration will also give you an identity and means we can address you by name rather than number :) : ... and maybe the most important reason - you can change your preference settings and change how the site looks - see the next point... Can I get rid of the ads? : The ads are imposed on us by Wikia and will always be visible to the unregistered user. The best solution is to register an account (if you haven't already done so) and choose the 'Don't show all ads' option in your . That will eliminate the ads. Can I trace deleted articles/images? : Information is preserved in the history of each page as well as the logs. If you need assistance, please contact one of the admins. Editing questions : What do the various link colours mean? : Green links are existing pages which turn a purplish colour once you have visited those pages. It depends on your cookie setting whether it reverts to green on your next log-in. Red links are pages still waiting to be created and those which are blue link to outside pages like a fan artist's website for example. We occasionally change the colour scheme - see Manual of Style for more details. Where can I discuss pages? : Each page has a built-in discussion (talk) page which is activated by the first contribution to that discussion page. It is accessed via the 'discussion/talk' tab. Please only use for editing related questions - if you wish to discuss 'Malazan' questions, please use the Malazan Empire forum and Malazan reddit Somebody made changes to my edits, what should I do? : Other than a few protected pages, all content is open for anyone to edit. Changes made should improve the article. If you feel that the edits do not improve the article then start a discussion about their validity on the article's talk/discussion page or contact the editor directly on their talk page if multiple articles are involved. Remember that the Wiki is a community project and no one 'owns' a page. If you can not agree with your fellow editor on how to progress, please contact an admin to arbitrate. What is a minor edit? : A minor edit is an edit that it is so non-noteworthy that users monitoring the article can usually skip it. Examples are spelling and grammar corrections, corrections of formatting and template usage. Addition and omission of content, as well as factual corrections, are not minor edits and should not be marked as such. What is a semi-protected page? : Semi-protected pages are pages that can only be edited by registered users that have been registered for 4 days or longer. It is done to prevent pages from being vandalized by anonymous or very new users. Like full protection, it is only used rarely. If full protection is a last resort measure, semi-protection can be thought of as a "penultimate resort". What is a fully protected page? : A fully protected page is one which can only be edited by administrators. Very few articles should be in this state: it is primarily reserved for frequently used templates, where vandalism or misguided good-faith edits can cause problems on multiple articles. It may also be used temporarily to forestall edit disputes. Community/political questions Can I become an administrator? : We currently have sufficient administrators but should the need arise, the active admins will approach a contributor who they think will complement the current team. Who defines the policies? : A lot of policies are based on those commonly applied across the Wikia Fandom. For important Malazan Wiki specific policy changes the regular contributors voice their preferences and reach a consensus. How can I contact an administrator? : Leave a message on their talk page. You will find a list of active administrators in Dujek's Command Tent In case of an emergency, you can also ask for help from the Wikia community and staff. What does ___x___ mean? : If you see unfamiliar terms like 'redirect', 'disambiguation' etc, check out the or leave a message on an administrator's talk page. Other questions What are those symbols in the top left corner of many articles? : They are content ratings. Category:help